The present invention is directed to a ball cleaner and, more particularly, to a ball cleaning and polishing machine that has the ability to clean and polish soiled game balls, e.g., balls for the game of billiards, snooker and the like in an automated, time-effective and partial-wear-free fashion.
As a rule, billiard balls need to be cleaned as frequently as possible to wipe out chalk powders, dirts, specks and finger marks left to the surface of the billiard balls during the course of their use. This is mainly because the billiard balls with soiled or unclean surfaces are unlikely to travel straight, when struck by a cue stick, and thus fail to roll over as long a distance as the players normally expect, eventually depriving the cueist of amusement.
Manual cleaning is a traditional mode of rendering the soiled balls clean and lustrous. Stated more specifically, the billiard balls are first applied with cleaning agent one by one and then vigorously rubbed by use of a soft fabric until the surfaces thereof grow clean. It is customary for the commercialized billiard halls to provide the customers with tens or hundreds of balls at a time, which means that the number of balls to be cleaned within a given period of time would increase accordingly. The task of manually cleaning so many billiard balls on an one-by-one basis is time-consuming and highly cumbersome, as a matter of course. At a large-scale billiard hall where scores of cueists may have the games of billiards, no sufficient time would be left to make clean the used balls for the next cycle of use. This will make it unavoidable either to prepare an exceedingly great number of fresh balls beforehand or to employ clerks who should devote themselves to a ball cleaning work.
As an alternative for the traditional manual cleaning, U.K. Patent Publication No. 2189156A teaches a ball cleaning apparatus comprising a housing, the upper part of which contains a motor connected by a transmission means to a cleaning band or belt, the band or belt being arranged in the lower part of the housing in such a manner, in use, as to make frictional contact with the surfaces of a plurality of balls placed in a container disposed in the housing beneath said band or belt. The container comprises a tray provided with individual compartments for each ball. The housing contains a reservoir for a cleaning medium which is accessible from the exterior of the housing and which has a delivery means that feeds the cleaning medium to the surface of the cleaning band or belt, from which it is transferred to the balls themselves during the cleaning process.
The ball cleaning apparatus referred to just above may be said to offer a significant advantage over the conventional cleaning technique in that a plurality of balls are cleaned automatically within a short period of time. During the cleaning process, however, the balls would rotate only in a single direction by means of the cleaning belt, thus leaving certain parts of the ball surface uncleaned at all. Another drawback is that specific area of the ball surface is continually kept in frictional contact with the cleaning belt, with the result that a biased or partial abrasion takes place, adversely affecting the rolling characteristic of the balls. Insufficiency in tension of the cleaning belt may cause the cleaning belt to come out of contact with some of the balls placed on the tray such that the non-contacted balls remain dirty even after the cleaning process comes to an end. Additionally, with the ball cleaning apparatus discussed in the ""156 publication, it is hard to remove residual cleaning agent from the surfaces of the cleaned balls, nor be it easy to polish the balls at the end of the cleaning process.
With these drawbacks in mind, the present inventor has developed an idle wheel type ball cleaning device which was matured into U.S. Pat. No. 5,546,629 with an issue date of Aug. 20, 1996. The ball cleaning device comprises a housing having a generally cylindrical side wall, a top access opening and a closed bottom, a turntable coaxially mounted on the spindle for rotational movement therewith, the turntable supporting the game balls, an idle wheel mounted on the turntable for rotation relative to the turntable, the idle wheel having a plurality of compartments arranged along its circumference, each of the compartments receiving the game balls in a spaced apart relationship with one another, and means for rotatably driving the spindle and the turntable in unison to subject the game balls to a rolling movement and a planetary movement around the spindle so that the idle wheel is pushed by the game balls into rotation about the spindle. Additionally, means is employed whereby the turntable and the idle wheel can be subject to an up-down movement between a lowered position where the game balls are cleaned and a raised position where the game balls are polished.
The ball cleaning device taught in the ""629 patent has proven to be of bulky and heavyweight structure due mainly to the employment of the turntable up-down means. In addition, it is difficult or almost impossible to make constant the rotational speed of the idle wheel whose rotation is caused by the rotating force of the turntable indirectly applied to the idle wheel via the game balls. This means that, depending on the number and size of the balls loaded, the speed of rotation of the idle wheel may vary to a significant extent, adversely affecting the cleaning and polishing efficiency. A further disadvantage is that the cleaning fluid continues to be supplied to the game balls in an uncontrolled amount throughout the operation period of the ball cleaning device, leading to contamination and dissipation of the cleaning fluid.
In an effort to eliminate the shortcomings inherent in the ""629 patent, UK Patent Publication No. 2322083A(international Publication No. WO98/35728) filed in the name of the inventor of the subject application discloses a ball cleaning and polishing device, comprising: a housing; a cleaning barrel extending vertically upwards from the housing and terminating at a top access opening; a turntable disposed inside of the cleaning barrel to support a plurality of balls and provided with a cleaning fabric; an impeller coaxially provided above the turntable and adapted to keep the balls isolated from one another; and differential drive means drivingly connected both to the turntable and the impeller for causing the turntable to rotate at a first speed and the impeller at a second speed smaller than the first speed so that the respective one of the balls can be subjected to rotation about its own axis and planetary movement about an axis of the turntable.
Employing the differential drive means in the ball cleaning device referred to above, however, would adversely affect the manufacturability and the production cost of the device as a whole. The differential drive means tends also to make the ball cleaning device structurally complicated and heavyweight.
The ball cleaning and polishing device disclosed in the UK Publication further comprises a cleaning fluid supplying means which includes a fluid reservoir received in the housing, a liquid permeable applicator pad provided on an inner surface of the cleaning barrel for making contact with the balls, a fluid dispenser provided outside of the cleaning barrel for dispensing a controlled amount of the cleaning fluid to the applicator pad, and a fluid pump for forcing the cleaning fluid to the fluid dispenser.
Mainly because the fluid reservoir taught in the UK Publication contains a large volume of the cleaning fluid to reduce the frequency of refilling the reservoir, there is a tendency for the abrasive particles dispersed in the cleaning fluid to be precipitated and solidified, which may lead to a decreased cleaning efficiency and an increased chance of malfunction of the cleaning fluid supplying means. It is very difficult, if not impossible, for the user to check out the residual amount of the cleaning fluid in order to refill the reservoir in a timely fashion. This is due to the fact the fluid reservoir, usually made of opaque material, is invisibly received in the housing of the ball cleaning device. Furtheremore, in the event that the fluid reservoir is refilled with the cleaning fluid of poor quality, the cleaning fluid supplying means may suffer premature failure and shortened service life.
It is an object of the invention to provide a ball cleaning and polishing machine which has a simplified structure and can be manufacturable in a cost-effective manner.
Another object of the invention is to provide a ball cleaning and polishing machine capable of agressively changing the direction of rotation of game balls, while subjecting the game balls to planetary movement about a machine center axis at a retarded speed.
A further object of the invention is to provide a ball cleaning and polishing machine which has the ability to supply game balls with a regulated amount of cleaning fluid in a cleaning process.
A still further object of the invention is to provide a ball cleaning and polishing machine with a squeezable see-through cleaning fluid container that permits the user to check out the residual amount of cleaning fluid and then to replace the used fluid container with a new one in a timely manner.
According to one aspect of the invention, there is provided a ball cleaning and polishing machine, comprising: a housing; a cleaning barrel extending vertically upwards from the housing and having a cylindrical interior surface; a lining provided on the interior surface of the cleaning barrel, the lining having a plurality of protuberances, each of the protuberances substantially uniformly spaced apart in a circumferential direction of the lining; a turntable adapted to support a plurality of game balls within the cleaning barrel and provided with a cleaning fabric; an impeller coaxially provided above the turntable for rotation relative to the turntable and for keeping the game balls isolated from one another; and an electric motor drivingly connected to the turntable for causing the turntable to rotate such that the game balls can be rubbed with the cleaning fabric.
According to another aspect of the invention, there is provided a ball cleaning and polishing machine, comprising: a housing; a cleaning barrel extending vertically upwards from the housing and having a cylindrical interior surface; a turntable adapted to support a plurality of game balls within the cleaning barrel and provided with a cleaning fabric; an impeller coaxially provided above the turntable for rotation relative to the turntable and for keeping the game balls isolated from one another; an electric motor drivingly connected to the turntable for causing the turntable to rotate such that the game balls can be rubbed with the cleaning fabric; and cleaning fluid supplying means including a squeezable fluid container replaceably mounted on the housing and a fluid dispenser operable to introduce the cleaning fluid from the fluid container and ejaculate a regulated amount of the cleaning fluid toward the game balls.